When immigration agents raided the nondescript house in a quiet Atlanta neighborhood, the officers found slave quarters: 6-by-8 cold, uninsulated closets where young women were expected to have sex with 30 or 40 different men every night. The girls were beaten regularly. They could not leave the premises or make contact with anyone without permission.

And then the agents, searching amidst filth, used condoms and stained mattresses, found the notebooks.

“As a woman, he is your first love, your first boyfriend, you want to make your life with this person who is going to treat you well,” said Fernanda.

That “first love” lured her across the border and into a life of slavery, she said.

Fernanda (like other victims in this article, this is not her real name) was one of 10 girls and women who testified against Amador Cortes-Mesa, a 36-year-old Mexican who was sentenced March 24 in Atlanta to 40 years in federal prison for sex trafficking and human smuggling offenses, among other violent charges. Four of the victims were juveniles. The youngest was 14.

“He told me he was going to marry me, he told me he was going to bring me to the States so I could work at a restaurant or take care of kids,” added Fernanda. “But that never happened.”

'Modern-day slavery'
“Mr. Cortes-Mesa began in Mexico with dating the girls, telling them he was going to be their boyfriend. In many cases he was their first boyfriend. They never had a sexual experience before him,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Coppedge, who successfully prosecuted the case against Cortes-Mesa and several relatives.

“One victim testified she didn’t even know what prostitution was until he told her about it,” added Coppedge. “It is taking someone’s civil rights away from them, it is modern-day slavery.”

Cristina, 29, was 24 when she was also courted by Cortes-Mesa with promises of marriage and a better life in the United States. Instead she was forced into prostitution and subjected to beatings when she displeased him.

“I have scars on my arms and legs, the scars don’t hurt but they will never go away,” said Cristina, who comes from a rural part of Mexico where her family subsists by picking corn and beans. “My head injuries, they still hurt, and I feel it when it’s hot and when it’s cold.”

Days — and years — in hell
“I would be the kind of person that would cower – I wouldn’t even answer when someone talked to me,” recalled Cristina.

The women were shuttled among brothels to avoid detection. They were never left alone.

“I could never talk to my mother alone,” Elena, another victim, said in court. “He (Cortes-Mesa) would beat me in the stomach if I said anything to my mother.”

“He would put the condoms in my purse, and count how many men I had to have sex with, 25, 35, or 40.”

The woman added that Cortes-Mesa never seemed to work. He spent the day playing cards with his relatives.

Trafficking children
Cortes-Mesa did not limit himself to young women of “marrying age.” One of the more sordid aspects of human trafficking is the vast number of children who are in the sex trafficking brothels.

“I lost the most important years of my life,” Caterina recalled bitterly, saying she was 15 when Cortes-Mesa ensnared her.

A few years later, the young woman is still grappling with the trauma of her enslavement. “I don’t trust no one. I don’t believe anymore. My personality is not the same,” she said at Cortes-Mesa’s sentencing.

“They’ve created this well-oiled machine that’s doing this and churning women and children through this kind of assembly line,” said Bradley Myles, executive director of the Polaris Project, a nonprofit created to combat trafficking and aid the victims.

Survivors caution others
The women interviewed after the Cortes-Mesa sentencing said they were not bitter, nor did they want vengeance. “When I saw him in court, I did not think of doing anything with my own hands,” said Cristina.

Instead, the women focused on cautioning others, especially immigrants, on avoiding the “trap” of lies used by human traffickers.

“I would tell people in Mexico and also here in the United States to be very careful and not to let their kids go with anyone because so many people want to hurt you,” said Cristina. “If they say they can help them come to the United States, don’t trust them.”

Fernanda echoed that message, saying, “I would recommend to girls, don’t go with a guy from the first instance because you don’t really know them, and these men just want to exploit women, they want women to work for them.”

Surviving slavery, moving on
With the help of local human rights groups and the federal agencies that rescued them, Cortes-Mesa’s victims are moving on. One woman now works in the hospitality industry, the other in a food processing plant.

And they are grateful for the little things. “I can talk to my family whenever I want,” says one victim.

Angelica, another woman rescued from Cortes-Mesa’s brothel, said, “I had it really tough, but it’s better late than never, to start with a better life, with different jobs, to study God willing, and well, to go on with life.

“Just because he did all these things doesn’t mean I am not going to better myself – I have to better myself.”

“When it all ends I might go back with my family,” said Cristina. “Like I said to the judge in court, I actually have been waiting to see what was going to happen. I was just waiting to make sure justice was done.”

After Cortes-Mesa’s sentencing, the women hugged the ICE agents and prosecutors and left the courtroom, heading for something better and leaving behind what prosecutors called “the unimaginable.”

Video: Women lured to, then enslaved in America

Closed captioning of: Women lured to, then enslaved in America

>>>now to what investigators say is a growing problem in neighborhoods across america, women lured to the
united states
from
latin america
by the promise of jobs and a
better life
, only to be forced into
sex work
. you might be surprised to find something like that could happen where you live.
nbc
's
richard lui
reports.

>> reporter: from the outside, this house looks like any other in the neighborhood. but inside, prosecutors say that
women and children
were forced to have sex up to 40 times a day after being lure to the u.s. by am dore
cortez
meza, the convicted ringleader of one of the largest international
sex trafficking
cases ever prosecuted here. authorities say these victims were held as slaves in nearby houses. the windows boarded. there was no way out. the women we spoke with asked us not to use their real names or show their faces.

>> translator: he beat me with a broomstick and with a closet bar. it's just not right what he did. he promised he would marry me.

>> reporter: that's one way authorities say
cortez
mesa would trick his victims, at least ten in this case and there may be more. authorities don't know if they are connect bud
nbc
news has found reports of similar types of brothels in at least 25 states.

>>the whole network spans all across the country really and it's snag i don't think many people realize.

>>the johns are coming here. were in the
cortez
mesa case, authority says dozens of johns would arrive at the house every night. how much money are we talking about here?

>>it would range between 25 and $35 per john.

>> reporter: prosecutors say just one victim could earn the
cortez
mesa ring hundreds of thousands of dollars a year women wouldn't get a cent. even if you knew it was happening inside of here, you couldn't just show up. you needed a personal invitation to get through that door. you had to be latino or referred to get in. the invitation, phony
business cards
passed out at this
shopping center
. often these brothels are hard to find. even the neighbors didn't know what
cortez
mesa's group was doing. you any idea what was happening across the street?